Entertainment Blogs

An online journal about visual art, the urban landscape and design. Mary Louise Schumacher, the Journal Sentinel's art and architecture critic, leads the discussion and a community of writers contribute to the dialogue.

While we strive for a lively and vigorous debate of the issues, we do not tolerate name calling, foul language or other inappropriate behavior. Please see our discussion guidelines and terms of use for more information.

While we do our best to moderate comments, we do not screen comments before they are posted. If you see a comment that violates our guidelines, please use the "Report Abuse" link to notify us of the issue.

John Copley was "American," in the same sense that Benedict Arnold was an "American." In 1769, he married the daughter of the Boston agent of the British East India Company. Apparently Mr. Rudolph forgot that the original "American" Tea Party threw tea owned by the British East India Company into Boston harbor and that precipitated the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution. Copley wanted no part of any uprising against King George III. He left America for England in 1774 and never returned. He died in 1815.

The artist was as Colonial American at the time of composition as anyone was, since there was no such country in 1763.

Is this what the Tea Party is reduced to, trolling the Internets for something to latch onto in order to make some completely lame and irrelevant comment?

Have such political commentators no sense of shame at all??

This is a tremendous acquisition of great art for our state's best museum. Teapartiers: please confine your ignorance to other venues where your irrelevance can influence small minds to your infinite pleasure.

"The Milwaukee Art Museum collects and preserves art, presenting it to the community as a vital source of inspiration and education."

The appearance is that MAM ignored its mission and instead wanted to make up for the fiasco that was the "The Emperor’s Private Paradise: Treasures from the Forbidden City" http://mam.org/china/

Too late MAM figured out they were pawns of the PR arm of People's Republic of China's Politburo: "Another Slavery Scandal in China" http://tinyurl.com/3fbytyf‏ "Measuring the Human Cost of an iPad Made in China" http://tinyurl.com/6ewg4pd‏ "Apple reveals increasing Chinese child-labor problem" http://tinyurl.com/3j5f2d4‏

Alan fwiw, capitalism has worked for centuries, because prices are set by the laws of supply and DEMAND. When the top 1% owns 40% of the US, DEMAND and the economy collapses.

The appearance is that Mr. Rudolph was tasked with acquiring an "American" artist. The appearance is that this wasn't an exercise in acquiring the best art value, but an attempt at "image rehabilitation."

Art acquisition is too precious and too complex imho to be used for "image rehabilitation." If that's the direction MAM, wants to go, however, I think they should try and return the work of a man who fundamentally rejected the Bill of Rights and the principles for which the United States of America stands.

Below is the speech of Tom Joad at the end of John Steinbeck's THE GRAPES OF WRATH. "I'll be all around in the dark. I'll be ever'-where - wherever you can look. Wherever there's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there. I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad - I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry an' they know supper's ready. An' when the people are eatin' the stuff they raise, and livin' in the houses they build - I'll be there, too."

Milwaukee used to be referred to as the "tool shop to the world." Unfortunately, Joad's speech more accurately reflects where we are now. I am not aware of any art that addresses that speech, but I'm sure it's out there.

So MAM "did well to acquire it," that's certainly good news. In order to know that, wouldn't you have to know how much Copley's work has been selling for the last few decades? Is Larry Gagosian interested? What about William Acquavella? Will the value of "Alice Hoopers" appreciate over time? "The Death of Major Pierson" and "Watson and the Shark" are, I believe some of his major works. Do you have any idea of their value?

mb, according to this article, "John Singleton Copley, Call Your Office," http://artmarketmonitor.com/2008/08/12/john-singleton-copley-call-your-office/ in 2008, an art dealer, Alex Acevedo , bought Copley's 1790 portrait of the "Second Earl of Bessbourogh," for $85,000. This portrait might be a much better comparison for the appraisal of "Alice Hoopers." Neither "The Death of Major Pierson," and "Watson and the Shark" are portraits. Both were large works of historical events.

What I don't know about painting could fill libraries. You, however, made the claim that MAM did well to acquire it. Are we just supposed to take your word for that, or can you back it up?

$3.5 million for a painting? Where is the outrage? How are the hippies and the lefties not coming out of the woodwork to denounce such a purchase "in times like these!" Our President complains of the luxuries of a private jet and trips to Las Vegas. But the MAM buys a piece of fabric in a frame for $3.5 mil? That would buy a lot of soup for the local food pantry! Why aren't they banging their drums and chanting about fairness and equality and redistribution of wealth? How dare the MAM spend this money on an "American" painting.

$3.5 million for a painting? Where is the outrage? How are the hippies and the lefties not coming out of the woodwork to denounce such a purchase "in times like these!" Our President complains of the luxuries of a private jet and trips to Las Vegas. But the MAM buys a piece of fabric in a frame for $3.5 mil? That would buy a lot of soup for the local food pantry! Why aren't they banging their drums and chanting about fairness and equality and redistribution of wealth? How dare the MAM spend this money on an "American" painting.

LOL, Casper, thanks for the unsolicited pseudo intellectual garbage this morning. You have demonstrated a great ability to Google and enlighten us. How about you create an endowment yourself and sponsor millions of dollars of what you think should be displayed.

John Casper go away, you have nothing to say. Aquisitions are a complex affair and shouting from the peanut gallery with irrelevant factoids is annoying, not enlightening. Balletmom go away, you are just recycling cut and paste nonsense.

E-mail Newsletter

Keep up with the art scene and trends in urban design with art and architecture critic Mary Louise Schumacher. Every week, you'll get the latest reviews, musings on architecture and her picks for what to do on the weekends.